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Craving a doughnut on the journey

first impressions of Charlotte

When I waited to board the Charlotte Light Rail, which parallels South Boulevard, I had not the slightest clue what to hypothesize about my first impressions of Charlotte. To help calm my nerves, I felt it necessary to note a unique attribute on a railway platform.

In the midst of scrambling about the uptown area of Charlotte, eagerly scouring glass windows for a glimpse of a doughnut display, wandering around resplendent street corners, I found myself in a constant frenzy with the city’s clean air and the communal appreciation for creating a sort of soothing atmosphere in which everyone can thrive. I felt this itch to assiduously observe my surroundings in order to capture in writing, or with the snap of a camera, sources of inspiration and things out of place so I went about the streets bending my neck and looking in almost every crack in the sidewalk to extract anything out of the ordinary. The moment I focused my attention to the sky and the tips of architectural erections, the more I was intrigued by the aesthetic of Charlotte.

I felt the impulse to capture things I wanted to photograph in black and white because of the comfort level that I had achieved without the challenge of colors. After trying to photograph a building partially obscured by the clouds, the timelessness of the center and nearby edifices didn’t seem to burst through the lack of pigmentation.

What seemed gaudy in design, translated to something of a clean and precise sort—a relinquishing of one’s lofty claims and reinstating visual depictions and stability, hospitality and solemnity.

The library was one of the first places I wanted to visit once I had arrived in Charlotte but it wasn’t until a few days after I arrived when I finally had the opportunity to bask in the literary repository of Charlotte’s main branch. On the way, I was fascinated by the vast blue sky that seemed to extend across all edges of the southern terrain.